


there's nothing to do right now but try. there are a hundred people who will listen to you cry. and I get, that they don't get it (but they love you so much that you won't regret it)

by What_Is_A_Mild_Opinion



Series: Golden Cracks and Miracles (This Bittersweet Being is Enough, With You) [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang (Avatar)-centric, Aang feels guilty, Aang had an older sister, Aang is a mess, Aang is a tiny baby, Aang is mourning his whole culture, Aang specifcally needs all the hugs., Aangst, Air Nomad Genocide (Avatar), Avatar the Last Airbender, Because I can, Genocides are the worst., He also is trying to let no one help him, He is struggling, He thinks he's a burden, I did random worldbuilding, I'm a sucker for linguistic worldbuilding, La beat him to it., Let Aang Rest., No beta we die like Sleep-Deprived College Kids, No one remembers Air Nomad Culture, Sokka is a Good Older Brother, Sokka was totally gonna kill Zhao, Someone give this baby a Hug, Sozin high-key Sucked., Suki is a Good Big Sister, The Gaang is amazing, The Gaang is so protective., The Gaang just needs a hug., This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Who let this grieving 12 year old be in charge of ending a war???, oh wait all of them are doing it :), this stupid child, this was supposed to be short I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:28:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26722918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/What_Is_A_Mild_Opinion/pseuds/What_Is_A_Mild_Opinion
Summary: “I keep thinking about this one poem,” he said quietly, and Suki only jumped a little. She turned towards him, pulling all of her attention to his words. “It was from an old nun at the Western Air Temple. She was dead long before I was born. But her poems were really beautiful. Ana-” he stopped, the simmering ghosts in his veins stirring and releasing a plaintive howl that sent tremors through his bones at the thought of her. “Someone I knew really loved them. And one of them stuck with me for some reason. I never got it before… everything. But I think I’m starting to get it, now.“In the poem,” he said slowly, measuring his words before he released them, “she compares herself to an empty cathedral, full of dust and the echoes of the dead. She says that she is hollow, and haunted, but she can’t tell who is the one doing the haunting, the people that are dead, or herself."-----Aang is grieving. And grief is never easy.
Relationships: Aang & Gyatso, Aang & Katara, Aang & OC, Aang & Sokka, Aang & Suki, Aang & The Gaang (Avatar), Aang & Toph, Aang & Zuko, Hakoda & his kids (like a little bit)
Series: Golden Cracks and Miracles (This Bittersweet Being is Enough, With You) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1944868
Comments: 65
Kudos: 192





	1. Aches and Cracks (My Chest Is Overflowing Now)

**Author's Note:**

> I went totally overboard with the worldbuilding, and I have no regrets. Said worldbuilding is not based on anything, so any parallels to real cultures are completely coincidental. Bear with me, and reference the Language Key. It will help you so much. I don't think there are any huge things in here that would be triggering. Slight references to violence, but no more so than the show. The worst part will be the discussions of genocide, and what the effects are on a survivor. If this is upsetting to you, DO NOT read this. Aang's grief will be the main focus of this piece I put our boy through it in this one. Hang in there. (But try to enjoy the nice little Gaang moments sprinkled in there, too. Cause we all need a little fluff sometimes.)  
> *I do not own these characters.

_Relame sai Yuoe._ Aang was familiar with the term. He had been for a long time. 

When he was seven, one of Monk Gyatso’s close friends passed away. When Aang had heard, he had asked Gyatso, “ _Aren’t you sad?”_

Gyatso had looked down at him with a soft smile and said, “ _I am very sad. I am sad that I may not see him again while I am on the Earth as I am now. But the sun is in the sky, Aang, and it is no time to mourn. It is time to live.”_

 _Relame sai Yuoe._ Gyatso had told him about it, then. It was a time-honored tradition, in which one began mourning when the moon rose each night, bringing with it its tapestry of stars, and ceased when it dipped back below the horizon, and the sun began to rise. You grieve in the darkness, in the shelter of the silence that gives a brief oasis from the world, and when the sun rises again, bringing with it the pounding pulse of life, living, you do not mourn. You celebrated all that who you loved had been, all that they had given, the way that they shaped your world for the better, like plants growing up toward the sun. It was a way to mourn while remembering that the person you loved was not really gone, that they lived on in every way that they changed you. That though they were gone, they would want you to find peace and happiness, too. When the sun is in the sky, it is time to live.

Aang had been familiar with the term for a long time. But now he knows it. He can trace the curves of its intimacy, the depth of its power. The strength it takes to observe. 

_Relame sai Yuoe._ To mourn with the moon. Aang has so much to mourn. It is hard to save it all for the darkness.

\---------

Aang began _Relame sai Yuoe_ the night after they left the Southern Air Temple. Before they had gotten there, the thought of it had crossed his mind. It had been one hundred years. (And, boy, was he still reeling from _that_ bombshell.) Some, if not all of the people he had known would be dead. But he was putting it off until he knew the extent of it. How many, and who, would he have to mourn? Never in his wildest nightmares, would he have guessed all of them. 

Katara and Sokka had been shooting him concerned looks since they left. Sokka was trying to be subtle about it. Katara was not. In all honesty, Aang wasn’t sure if Katara knew how to do anything subtly. She laughed in a way that shook her whole body with the force of her mirth, she yelled at Sokka with all the air in her lungs when he made her mad, she grinned like every smile would be her last. It was nice. Her emotions rolled out of her in waves, her happiness intoxicating anyone who could get close enough. But now she just seemed worried. Maybe that was valid. After all, they had just watched him turn into a pain-possessed monster with seemingly godlike powers. And they had pulled him back from it. He was grateful for that.

After they had pulled him back from _whatever_ that was, ( _The rage of hundreds burning in his veins. Pain, pain, pain, his voice but one of many in the echoes of time. Drowning in himself, back and back and back, all the way to the beginning…)_ he had been eager to leave. There was nothing left for him here. Not anymore. The siblings had been more than willing to agree. Neither of them would say it to his face, but silence has a language all its own. Neither of them wanted to be there anymore, in that crumbling temple of bones and ghosts, that had never been anything to either of them.

They had left. Aang had watched the temple disappear behind the clouds, shoving back the agony that threatened to swallow him whole. Then he had swallowed his grief like a bad moon peach, and was now very decidedly _not_ thinking about the fact that his entire culture was gone. He had parked himself on Appa’s head, feeling the roar of the wind over his body, very firmly _not_ looking at Sokka and Katara and the worry written over both their faces. He blinked water from his eyes and shook his head. It's just the wind making his eyes water. Nothing else.

Appearing out of nowhere from his left, Katara dropped down next to him with a thud, making him jump. He hadn’t even heard her coming. She yelled something, but the wind ripped the words away before they could reach him. He flicked a hand at the air in front of them, and immediately the worst of the wind parted in two around them. 

_Anaya leaning down over him, her gray eyes sparkling. “When you get your bison,” she says, with a tiny smile, “ the wind will be strong when you ride them. So, when you need to talk to someone while you are up there, you do_ this _,” she flicked her hand in front of her, throwing all her fingers out, and the air rushed away in either direction, “-so that you can talk to them.”_

 _“Cool!” Aang gasped. “You just, fwooom_ , _push the air away!”_

_She laughed when he clumsily imitated her movement, and the air tumbled away with much less grace, yanking at her skirts and her braid. She smoothed down his jumpsuit, brushing dust off his shoulder in an affectionate way. “Try to think of it not as the air leaving, but just moving around you. Like a stream splitting around a rock. Don’t push the air. Just guide it.”_

Aang shoved the memory back, and blinked back more tears. Not now. Not here. “Aang?” Katara started. “Are you okay?” 

Really? He had just found out that his whole nation was dead, and she was asking if he was okay? _Really?_ Maybe something showed on his face, or maybe she realized what she had said, because she winced at her own words barely seconds after they had left her mouth. “Alright,” she said. “That came out wrong. I know that you aren’t okay. Nothing about this is okay. It would be wrong to expect you to be fine after learning…” She trailed off. What can you say about the death of so many people? What can you say about so much history, gone?

“Look,” she said fiercely, regaining her voice. “I know that you need time. I know how awful losing someone can be. But I want you to know that we are here for you. If you need someone to talk with, or someone to listen, or even just someone to sit with you when it all feels like too much, okay? We care about you. And if you need us, we will be there for you.” He looked over at her, her posture soft, but her eyes stormy with the weight of her concern. And her care. _We are going to be here for you, whether you like it or not,_ her stubborn gaze seems to say. He felt his throat clog with emotion, and his eyes itch and burn. It aches in his chest, grief, and pain, and guilt, guilt, guilt.

“Thank you, Katara,” he finally managed to get out past the tightness in his throat. “I won't forget it.”

The two of them sat in silence between the arc of Appa’s horns and watched as the hawkbobcats wheeled against the dripping colors of the sunset. And when the last streaks of pink faded from the sky, leaving only the cool blues and purples of twilight and the distant gleam of stars above them, he climbed back into the saddle, and let himself fall apart between only two people he had left. 

\-------

 _Do you miss your people?_ Zhao had sneered. It had been a jab, a mockery, a cruel jest at a helpless child. 

It had been pathetic. A pathetic attempt from a pathetic man, trying to find strength and confidence in other people’s pain. Aang knew this. So why did it still _hurt_ so much? Why did his words feel like such a slug to the gut? 

Zhao had laughed as something crumbled in his expression, smirked as his head drooped and the cold, familiar claws of grief dug into him, twisting his insides into a murky mess of pain and guilt. 

It had been a throwaway comment from a pathetic man trying to pretend he was strong. Aang knew that. So why was he still awake, listening to the sounds of his friends’ breathing and the croaks of the badgerfrogs, blinking away tears? Why, Spirits why, were his hands still shaking?

Once Katara and Sokka had woken from their fevers, spitting and cursing, ( _You put frogs in our mouths?! Aang, that’s nasty!_ ) Sokka had taken one really good look at him, from his mud stained pants, to his hole-ridden sleeves; had taken note of the nasty, bloody scrape on his cheek and the shiner Aang definitely had, and he had growled, “Explain. Now.” 

Sokka acted silly for so much of the time that Aang had forgottten about what Katara had so lovingly labeled Big Brother Interrogation Mode. Personally, he had never experienced it until then. Aang had laughed when she had described it as terrifying, saying, “Come on, Katara. It can’t be _that_ bad. This is Sokka we’re talking about! Yesterday he tried to intimidate that girl into telling us which town we landed in, and she laughed in his face!” Katara had raised her eyebrows and given him a look like, _just you wait. You’ll experience it someday, and then you won’t be laughing anymore._

Well, what do you know. As with most other things, Katara had been right, yet again. Any trace of a joking nature had fled Sokka’s face, leaving behind only a cold, flat rage in his steel blue eyes. He looked as though he was prepared to shred trees into ribbons, or tear down castles brick by brick, to find whatever, whoever was responsible. Aang felt like a jackalope staring down a wolf. _You cannot avoid this,_ Sokka’s wolf eyes said, his stare boring into him. _One way or another, I will get whatever happened out of you._

He glanced over at Katara, panic all over his face. She looked at him with wide, incredulous eyes and shook her head as if to say, _nuh-uh. Think again. I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole. You’re on your own._

So, in hope of escaping Sokka’s wrath at least mostly intact, he had sat down and done exactly what he was told. He explained. Everything from the terrifyingly accurate archers, to the fortress designed to keep people in as much as out, to the shock when he found out that his rescuer was actually the deranged Fire Prince who had been chasing them since the South Pole. He had also explained what the herbalist had said, about the nutrients that they needed to break the fever in the frogs’ skin, and “ _I had to put the frogs in your mouth! You’re_ welcome, _thank you very much.”_

When he was done, he had shifted nervously in place, trying his best not to look away from Sokka’s very intimidating glare. In fact, if he had not known that Sokka was probably mostly mad at other people that were not him, he would have just tucked tail and run. The Water Tribe boy stared at him for a few more seconds, quite obviously mentally dissecting him, analyzing his behaviors. It would be months before Aang realized that the older boy had not been trying to figure out if he was hiding anything. He had been looking for wounds. After a few moments, the air thick with tension, Sokka relaxed, and the wolf left his eyes. “Well,” he said mildly, with a sly grin, as if he had not just turned into a pseudo-monster for a few minutes. “That’s quite a story. I can’t believe you, Aang. Had all the fun for yourself. And you didn’t even let us join you. For shame.” 

The three of them laughed. But it didn’t escape Aang’s notice that Sokka’s eyes lingered on him for a second after the laughter died, something hard and tentatively suspicious. It was only for a second though, and then he let out a horrified shriek. 

“What?” Katara said, bolting upright into a fighting position, her head snapping around to look for danger. “What is it, Sokka?”

Her brother spun around to face her, horror written all over his face as he lunged toward her, opening his mouth as wide as it would go. “There isn’t a wart on my throatal flap, is there?!?!”

Now, two days later, he still couldn’t get Zhao’s comment out of his head. It swirled, around and around in his mind, like a squirrelcrow with a bad wing. The moon hung above him, a crescent sliver now, brilliant and luminescent. The moon is in the sky. It is time to mourn. 

He breathed in and out. The tears came, and he let them. He stared up at the moon, half obscured by silk-gray clouds and began the game he had started three nights after the Southern Air Temple.

 _Gyatso._ He begins. _Anaya._ He swallows hard and keeps going. _Monk Varih. Monk Iraloh. Monk Urhao. Monk Heufel. Monk Tangith._ This is his game. These names. _Oweath. Wealen. Kowen. Shao-Ni. Yarin._ These names. All the names. Everyone he can remember, over, and over, and over again. He has to remember them. Who else will? 

He realized his sobs were getting louder. He rolled on his side, and covered his mouth with his hand as the shudders racked his body, his breaths stuttering and uneven. Not enough air for his lungs, his ruined lungs, too full of ghosts to have enough room for oxygen. 

_Nun Faomet. Nun Qwemel. Nun Jaoyeng. Nun Terenu. Nun-_

“Aang?”

Aang jumped, whipping around with a strangled gasp. Sokka had half risen from his sleeping bag, his worried eyes snagging on Aang’s haunted ones from all the way over the firepit. “Sokka. What are you doing awake?” His voice cracked horribly halfway through, and he sounded so pitifully croaky, even to his own ears, that if Sokka hadn’t known he was crying before, he did now. 

That seemed to be all the confirmation Sokka needed for his next course of action, because he wrestled his sleeping bag off of him, and padded around the dying embers of the fire to Aang. He brushed a few strands of hair from his face and smoothed down his rumpled clothes, swinging a hand up to cover his heart. “Do you mind if I join you, O’ Mighty Young Airbender?” he asked in an over-the-top tone of voice, his face screwed up in a fake pompous expression.

Despite the misery still choking him from within, Aang snorted. “It would be an honor to be blessed with your presence, O’ Noble Young Warrior.” he replied in the same tone of voice.

Sokka let out a snicker and dropped down next to him with an unceremonious _thump._ Aang dropped his gaze to the ground, tears blurring his vision. He felt the older boy’s gaze on him, caring and concerned. _Stop crying, eyes,_ he thought furiously. His eyes did not stop crying. In fact, they seemed to be making a concerted effort to produce even more tears, the traitors. _Stupid, inconsiderate eyes._ He let out a ragged sob, then shoved his fist into his mouth. 

“Hey,” Sokka scolded, reaching over and gently prying Aang’s fist out of his mouth. “Don’t do that. You’ll bite yourself bloody. Plus, _gross._ Like, I love you. But you are aware of where your hands have _been,_ right? You were near Appa’s poop-hole today. Who knows what you could be carrying?”

Aang gave a broken laugh. “You sound like Katara.”

“We are related, you know.”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!”

Aang laughed.

They sat in silence for a few moments, a symphony of crickets the only sound. “Did I wake you up?” Aang asked.

Sokka shifted, looking over at him. The angle of the moonlight had cast his face in deep shadow. He looked much older than fifteen. In a way, Aang thought he was. Deep down, weren’t they all just a little too old for their skin? Hadn’t they all seen too much? _War has no place for children,_ Aang thinks. _Maybe that’s why it had a place for all of us._

“No,” Sokka said. “I was already awake. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s just a _tiny_ bit warmer here than I’m used to. I constantly feel sticky and it is the WORST. And mosquitoes. _Yarrgh._ I could have gone my whole life without mosquitoes and I would have been happy.”

Aang let out a wet giggle. “Yeah, they can be annoying.” 

Sokka was still looking at him, his eyes dark with an emotion Aang couldn’t quite place. Aang swiped away some of the wetness on his cheek, trying to avoid the older boy’s piercing gaze. Something about him made you feel like your whole being was under a microscope, like you just had to wait until he found whatever he was looking for with a startling accuracy. “What happened?” He asked softly, splitting the tentative silence between them. 

“What do you mean?” He doesn't have to know. It shouldn't be Sokka's job to have to console him, especially over something as stupid as a throwaway comment. 

“You know what I mean. At the fortress. What happened? Something has clearly been bothering you.”

Aang hesitated for a moment, rolling the words over his tongue, feeling them out. Could he tell him? _Should_ he tell him? 

_Who can it hurt?_ A tiny voice whispered in his head. _You are all that is left._

Conviction flooded through him, and before his sudden surge of courage could completely abandon him, he blurted, “It was Zhao.”

Sokka’s eyes darkened, frost racing over the surface of a pond. “What about him?” He seemed to be making a concerted effort to keep his voice low and even.

“He said something to me, back in the…” He trailed off. He was curling in on himself. Anaya had told him once that he always did when he was hurting. “I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much,” he sniffed, wiping his nose. “He was just trying to feel big. That’s it. He just wanted to feel powerful, even though I think he knows he’s really not. So why is it _bothering_ me so much?”

“Aang. What did he say?” Sokka sounded like a glacier just before it split and dropped sheets of ice as tall as buildings into the sea. Cold and quietly deadly.

He curled even further into himself, his spine an arched bow. Was it possible to drown when there was no water around you? He felt like he was drowning.

“He asked if I missed them.” The two of them had already been trying to be quiet, so as not to wake Katara. But these words were more breath than noise, so barely there they were almost too soft to be heard. As if dropping them too loudly would shatter whatever this was, this moment of raw edges and wounds far deeper than skin, bleeding and bleeding and bleeding.

“ _Te Kavéle,_ ” Sokka hissed, disgust and rage dripping from the words.

Aang’s head snapped up, and he stared at Sokka incredulously. He had, of course, known of the curse word. But it was _foul._ He would never have expected to hear it from either of the Water Tribe siblings. It wasn’t a word that you used as a joke. 

“Sokka!” he exclaimed. “You can’t be serious!”

“Oh, I am _very_ serious,” Sokka growled, his eyes burning. “Let that _fecin_ die miserable and alone.” Sokka stopped then, looking at him. “Is that why you’ve been acting so out of it?” 

Aang nodded pitifully. He sucked in a shaky breath, and let it rush out again. Was this what being alone felt like? Were these shards of broken glass in his lungs that rattled in time with his breathing loneliness? Or were they guilt? “I just… It was- it was my fa- fault. I should have- should have been there. I wou- would’ve saved them, right?” He was fully hyperventilating now, his breaths coming in ragged pieces, too many tears and not enough oxygen. “That’s my j-job, I’m the Avatar, I’m- I’m supposed to fix stuff like that, r- right? I could have-”

Sokka yanked him in, pinning him between his arms, surrounding him and supporting him and tilting him away from the world. When he spoke his voice was soft and soothing. “Hey, hey, breath with me. Match my breathing, okay? Come on, _shaimeke,_ breathe with me.”

Aang shoved himself even further into Sokka’s embrace, trying to match the exaggerated rise and fall of his chest. Felt, rather than listened to, the air pulsing in and out of him. Slowly, his breathing grew less erratic. It was nice here, in Sokka’s arms. The steady _thump-thump_ of his heart under his ear, his warmth. The way he somehow seemed to make you feel as though you were no longer part of the huge, scary world, but a much smaller, safer one, all arms and breaths and steady heartbeats and the wonderful spot right up against his collarbone, where nothing else seemed to matter. “There was nothing you could do, alright?” Sokka murmured. “I know that it probably doesn’t feel like that right now. Maybe it never will. But it was a calculated attack, designed to account for all the possibilities.” He tipped Aang’s chin up and looked in his eyes, gray on blue. Thunderstorms against arctic skies before a blizzard. “Except,” he said softly, “one.”

“What?” Aang croaked. “What are you talking about?”

“Aang,” Sokka said, eyes soft and sad and broken in a way that reflected his own shards of glass. “You aren’t the reason the Fire Nation succeeded in wiping out the airbenders. You are the reason they _failed._ ”

Aang’s jaw dropped, his eyes widening in shock.

“I know what you are probably thinking,” he continued before Aang could interrupt. “That I’m crazy, that they _did_ succeed, that the airbenders are gone. But you’re wrong. Because you are still here. You gave them the _one_ thing, the _one_ variable that they could never expect. Could never counter. I know it wasn’t on purpose, but you did the one thing that meant Sozin could never really finish the job. You hid yourself in the one place where no one and nothing," he paused, wrinkling his nose, a wry smile playing on his lips, "except apparently the undiluted rage of Katara, could touch you.

“Maybe most of them are gone. But you are still here. And I know that that sucks. I can’t say I fully understand the depths of what you are feeling, but I do know. You haven’t failed them, Aang. Not really. And whatever you are feeling… it’s okay. It’s okay to feel that. It’s okay to miss them. It’s okay for you to be a mess, and fall apart, and crumble into a million pieces missing them, because at the end of the day, we will be there to help you put yourself back together again. We will be there to help carry the weight. You don’t have to do it all on your own. We are here.”

Aang looked at Sokka for a moment, eyes wide, searching. Searching for anything, everything, any hint that this was not totally true. And found nothing but sincerity, and concern, and _love,_ all the way down to the depths of his soul. (Aang compares Sokka to a river, sometimes, and the most powerful rivers run so very deep.) It aches in his chest, grief, and pain, and guilt, guilt, guilt. He crumbled. He let himself fall apart missing them, and knew it didn’t matter, because Sokka and Katara would be there to help put him back together in the morning. 

He cried himself to sleep in Sokka’s arms. When he woke up, one of the boy’s arms lay folded under his head in the dirt, and the other was still curled loosely over his shoulders. He slowly pulled himself from Sokka’s grasp, and padded over to the campfire. 

Katara sat hunched over on her toes, poking the embers back to life in the side of the firepit, something already simmering over low tongues of flame just a foot away. She looked up at him and gave him a small grin. “Good morning,” she said. “I see you’ve discovered the truly insatiable monster that is cuddly Sokka.”

Aang blushed. “He’s pretty good at hugs.”

Katara laughed, her expression fond. “Yeah, he is.”

And though her eyes hovered on him for a second longer than usual, she said nothing more about it. She resumed poking in the ashes, delicate swirls of smoke rising from the gray powder. A few seconds later, sparks flickered to life, and she gave a happy cheer under her breath. "Victory is mine," she muttered to herself with a tiny grin dripping smug satisfaction. He fought the smile tugging at his lips. When she has stoked the embers back to a livelihood that was to her satisfaction, she stood up, groaning and cracking her back. She slid past him, aiming for a bag of spices from her pack. But on her way back, she stopped and squeezed his shoulder. He looked up at her, read the silent question in her eyes. He reached up and squeezed her hand back. _I’m ok now. I promise._

Apparently satisfied, she squeezed his shoulder once more, then returned to her simmering pot, muttering under her breath about which spices they needed to get more of at the next town. Behind them, Sokka gave a snore so loud it startled a bird out of a nearby tree. They looked at each other with wide eyes, and burst into gales of laughter. Sokka rolled upright with a grunt, and snapped, “Can you two noisybutts keep it down? I’m trying to sleep over here!”

In response, Aang and Katara started laughing even harder. _I’m ok now._ He thought. _I promise._

\-----

Grief. It had grown familiar to him in the weeks it took them to get to the North Pole. Before they got there, Aang had grown used to mourning with the moon. After they left, he was mourning for it, too.

\-----

It was raining. And Aang was dancing. 

_We give prayer to the spirits anyway,_ Anaya had said once. _Why not give it in a way that leaves us both happy?_ Aang had asked Gyatso if it was ok. Would the spirits be mad? 

Gyatso had laughed, and said to him, _Dancing is one of the most pure forms of expression. It shows true emotion in a way that can rarely be replicated with words. I think it would be a fine way to give prayers._

So, even though Monk Tangith shot him the occasional dirty look, or disapproving glare, even though he always ended up soaked and shivering and covered in mud, when the rain came, he did his prayers. He spun, and he leapt, and he kicked water from puddles into the air, and he sang his _Eravev-Uole_ in time with the pounding of the rain, nature’s heartbeat thrumming all around him. 

It felt right. It felt like being home. And sometimes, he swore he could hear voices. Laughing, or humming, or whispering words in a language too impossibly ancient and powerful to be comprehensible to the human mind. Spirits. Listening. Spirits, singing along with him, their voices mere echoes of the power they held, rippling reflections on the surface of a lake, distorted and incomplete, but so very entrancing, too. The Air Nomads gave prayers to the spirits. But now... How long had it been since someone had sung for them, to them, with them? How long had they gone unremembered, ignored? He supposed maybe it didn’t really matter. He was singing, now. 

They were somewhere off the eastern coast of the Earth Kingdom, on a secluded clifftop covered in plants, and soft dirt, and rocky depressions filling up with water, and the rain was falling, and Aang was dancing. He had ditched his shoes in the cave where Appa laid, curled up fast asleep, and raced out into the rain. He started singing with an old chant that Monk Iraloh had been fond of, and slipped, word by word, into his own. Before, the old chants had worked for him completely. But so much had changed. The world had spun on for one hundred years without him, and he had seen too much of the world now to fit in the smaller phrases. Had witnessed too many tiny miracles to encompass everything he wished to give thanks for with someone else’s words. So he had been working, in quiet moments, capturing his gratefulness in chants entirely his own, memorizing the things he wanted to remember, painting them in gold behind his eyelids until his song slipped out of him with the ease of a waterfall pouring off a cliff into open air. 

He kicked water, and stomped in mud puddles, and tipped his head back to sing the first verse of his own making entirely, when a voice from behind him roared, “Hey, Twinkletoes! What the fuck are you doing?” 

He whipped around, staring at Toph with wide eyes. For a moment he was shocked, and then a voice in the back of his head said, _Of course she doesn’t know what you’re doing, Stupid. You haven’t ever done this around her when she was awake._

Once, in the first few weeks, back when it was just him and Katara and Sokka, he had tried to do his _Eravev-Uole_ when they landed to stretch and take a break. He had gotten halfway through his third chant when Sokka had asked, _Um, Aang? What on earth are you doing?_ The two of them had looked at him like his sanity had flitted out one of his ears, and flown away with the wind. And for some reason, the fact that they were so weirded out by his prayer had sliced deeper than a knife, and twice as painful. Sure, the other nations didn’t do things like that anymore, but it wasn’t like no one knew what it was. Except apparently, they didn’t. It had hit him like a punch in the gut, their casual discomfort in something that was so deeply ingrained in his culture, in himself. _Nothing,_ he had snapped, sharp, and angry, and entirely unlike himself. The grief had been so sudden and unexpected, he had been drowning before he even knew he was underwater. It had hurt him so badly for a reason he couldn’t quite put into words, that for a long time now he had only ever done his _Eravev-Uole_ when they were asleep, or he was alone. 

But Toph was asking, and she didn’t sound weirded out, really. Just curious, and maybe a little annoyed that he had just run off without saying a word to her. And for some reason, it didn’t ache quite so deeply anymore that she didn’t know what he was doing. Didn’t feel quite so much like an open wound. So he jogged over to her, back under the lip of the cave, and shot her a huge grin. “ _Eravev-Uole.”_ He said.

She frowned at him. “Care to explain in words that I can actually understand?” Ah, Toph. Blunt to the point of injury, as always. But something in the shift of her shoulders was murmuring that she was suddenly more curious.

“I’m praying to the spirits,” he explained. “I’m thanking them, for everything that I love about the world. It's a super old tradition.”

She pondered over that for a moment, her brows furrowed in thought. “You’re thanking the spirits… with singing and dancing.” She said skeptically. 

“The dancing isn’t technically required. It’s just for fun.”

“For fun.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, isn’t the world kind of wonderful? Aren’t there things about it that you love?”

“Yes,” Toph said flatly. “Gotta love that sweet, sweet, oppression and social discrimination.” 

Aang shook his head. “Not _that_ world. I mean nature. Like the way everything smells after it rains, or the feeling of damp dirt under your toes. It’s like, we take that stuff for granted so often. We thank Agni for the sun, and Tui and La for the ocean, but what about all the other things that make the world beautiful? All the little things that you love? It’s for thanking the spirits of the little things along with the big ones. Just to say, _hey, this is good. I love it. Good job._ It makes them feel heard. Remembered. You tell them what you find beautiful, and the point is that everyone’s thank yous are a little bit different. It makes them happy.”

Toph stared in his direction for a few seconds, feeling over the idea. “Damp dirt.” she mused, her toes flexing in the cool earth of the cave floor. “I guess the idea is not as horrible as it could be.” She thought for a few seconds, gazing at nothing. She shifted suddenly, squaring her shoulders and raising her chin in his direction. “For the record, this is still stupid.” she declared. “I’m totally doing it too, though.” Aang let out a delighted laugh.

The two of them ran out in the rain, and Aang sang his thanks back up to the sky, paid tribute to a thousand tiny miracles that he loved. He danced and spun and jumped in puddles, and he thought he saw Toph murmuring something under her breath. _Damp dirt,_ he thinks. The mist coiling off the ground shifted, swirling in circles, an unnatural wind rushing past them, around them, between them. For a split second, there were voices. Singing along with them. Toph stiffened like she had been shocked. Aang threw his hands up to the sky and laughed. The voices laughed with him. And then they were gone. 

He looked over at her, grinning. He hoped she could feel it. She looked over at him, an awed smile on her face, and laughed, loud, and bright, and incredulous. And he knew that she knew the spirits had heard them, too. For a minute, they just stood there in the rain, chests heaving, listening to the pounding of millions of tiny droplets, breathing water and earth, alive, alive, alive. 

And then Toph turned to him with an evil grin, and leapt into the puddle next to him, spraying him with water from the waist down. He cackled, and yelled, “Oh, it is _on.”_

The two of them ran, spinning and splashing and jumping in puddles, throwing water at each other in huge, sweeping motions, both of them shrieking with laughter. It culminated in an all out mud war that began when Toph shoved him into a mud puddle, and he scooped a huge handful of it from the bottom, chucking it in her face with a loud _splat._ It only devolved from there. They weren’t even earthbending, really. Just pelting each other with handfuls of mud, throwing insults and wet earth, and laughing so hard they could barely breathe. His mind rang with echoes of a day years ago at the Western Air Temple, of laughter, and rain, and mud fights, and the children of not one but two air temples all racing together under the cloud filled sky. It felt like home. 

He laughs, and he aches, grief, and pain, and something like hope sitting bittersweet on his tongue. And it is worth it. It is worth it, standing in the rain, laughing. It is worth it later, when Katara and Sokka get back, and Katara takes one look at them, soaked to the bone and completely brown with mud, and says, “ _Why,”_ with all the exhaustion of a jaded school teacher, and the two of them start laughing again. Katara fusses over their clothes, and the mud in Toph’s hair, and _Really, you two, I leave for two hours and you start throwing mud?_ Later, she will be part of a mud fight between not two people, but six, and she will shake her head, and laugh, and wipe the mud off all the rest of them before herself. But none of them know that yet.

 _Worth it._ Aang thinks, as Katara pulls down what is left of Toph’s bun to begin working the mud out of it, still scolding both of them, Sokka snickering behind her. _Worth it,_ he thinks, as Sokka hands him an extra pair of clothes to wear until Katara can wash theirs, rolling his eyes with a fond grin. He aches, deep and unending, but these people are here with him, and they will listen if he asks. _Worth it,_ he thinks, and he can almost hear Anaya laughing.

\-----

Sokka and Zuko left for a “fishing trip”. Katara seemed very skeptical of this. “Sokka and I have gone on plenty of fishing trips,” she said to him, her face pinched in distaste and a lurking concern that never seemed to leave her when she didn’t know where her brother was. “They took maybe five hours at most. Never three days.” And Katara might still be skeptical of Zuko, but she isn’t a liar. So Aang really wasn’t shocked when it turned out that they didn’t really go on a fishing trip. The shock came in the form of an older Water Tribe man, and a very familiar warrior girl. 

Katara sobbed when she saw her father, and buried herself in his arms. Aang shrieked, seizing Suki in a hug, and proceeding to jump around her, rambling like his life depended on it for the next five minutes. If Suki was overwhelmed by his excitement, it was swamped by her amused happiness. When Katara finally extracted herself from her father’s embrace, she hugged Suki so hard the Kyoshi warrior had to squeak, “Katara. Ribs. Air.” 

Toph went to punch Suki on the shoulder, but it didn’t slip Aang’s notice that Suki was still eyeing them all just a bit like the wolf-badgers that lived in the forest below the Southern Air Temple always eyed the Air Nomads. Like she was waiting for them to charge, waiting to bare her fangs and bite. So he nudged Toph out so she had to approach Suki from the front instead of the side or the back. Suki, sharp-eyed Suki who saw too much and could read other people like pages from a book before they were even done writing, gave him a look. The sharpness at the edge of her smile faded just a little bit, and her eyes softened, as if to say thank you. He grinned back at her, and gave a tiny nod. 

Toph punched Suki’s shoulder, and in response Suki ruffled her hair and said, “Still beating up Aang?”

Toph cackled, her eyes flashing evilly. “Every chance I get!”

Sokka was ecstatic. He had his father out of prison, his pretty-much-girlfriend (who was also kind of one of the most awesome women Aang had ever met) back, and he somehow made a friend out of a very scary looking criminal, who also came back with them. Life was looking up for him. Life was looking up for all of them actually, because Suki was back, and honestly Suki could go toe-to-toe with any of them in battle any day. She was a truly amazing warrior. Plus she was just awesome. 

For the rest of the day, Suki and Hakoda eased back into their group. Katara helped fill in the rest of the story of what they had done since the failed invasion, which was, in all honesty, not much. The most exciting part was Zuko explaining their encounter with the dragon masters, which left both Suki and Hakoda speechless. Aang dropped in some of his words when Katara or Sokka asked him to, and Toph cut in whenever she felt like it, which was very Toph. 

A thought struck him as he stared at Suki’s skin, which looked a little too pallid for comfort. Without explanation, he got up and walked away. Toph gave him a curious look, and he waved at her dismissively. He slipped back to where they had all been sleeping in a loose circle, and made a beeline for the pot sitting in the still warm embers. After tentatively brushing a finger along the side to make sure it wouldn’t burn him, he scooped up the pot and the bag full of clean dishes. (Or what was left of them. There were quite a few bowls and plates lying dirty on the floor by various sleeping spots, which maybe said something about their group’s relative cleanliness.)

He walked back over to the group and set the pot down in front of Suki and Hakoda with a slight _clang._ He winced at the ring of metal on stone, and the _splosh-splosh-splosh_ of the liquid inside, and then looked at Suki. “It’s left over from this morning,” he said, handing her the bag of dishes. “It should still be warm at least, and there’s plenty left over. I figure prison food can’t have been all that great.”

All of them stared at him, surprised and stunned and wearing faces that said _Why didn't I think of that?_ but before anyone else could say anything, Suki rose up halfway, seized his shoulders and yanked him down, dropping a huge kiss on his forehead. When she pulled away to meet his eyes, hands still on his shoulders, she said seriously, “I love you.” 

Aang blushed. Toph laughed. “I just figured…” he mumbled.

“No,” Hakoda cut in. “That was very thoughtful. Thank you, Aang.”

He shot Hakoda a tiny smile. “It’s no problem.”

Suki yanked out a bowl and filled it almost all the way to the top, but instead of scarfing it down as fast as she could get it in her mouth, like Aang had thought she would, she seemed to be taking her time. Hakoda was not taking his time. He flew through three bowls of the breakfast soup faster than Aang could believe. Sokka was practically melting all over Suki, and Katara hadn’t moved from her father’s side except to give Suki a hug. She had now parked herself beside him, and was watching him as though he would float away and disappear if she moved her eyes even for a second, her face a strange mix of relief and desperation and awe. Like Hakoda’s presence made her the luckiest person alive.

Really, it was wonderful to see the Water Tribe siblings so happy again. Since the failed invasion, the two of them had seemed borderline despondent, except for when it came to helping the others, which they did with an obsessive fire that they had never had before. 

Toph would never say it out loud, but he had sensed her worry in the tense line of her shoulders, the slight downturn at the corners of her mouth, the subtle narrowing of her milky eyes when they said something too fast, or too slow, or their heartbeats spiked at the mention of the invasion. She had been concerned, and she wasn’t the only one. The Duke, Teo, and the others had seemed to notice something was wrong, even if they didn’t know the two well enough to pinpoint what it was. Aang and Toph were a different story. Aang knew what guilt looked like. Both of the siblings blamed themselves. He couldn’t hold that against them. He kind of blamed himself, too. 

So it was good to see them with a sparkle back in their eyes. Katara looked happier than she had been since the invasion, and Aang was pretty sure that if Sokka got so much as one more kiss from Suki in the next three minutes, he would simply melt into a puddle of blissful goo. But despite his best efforts to just be happy that they were back, something cold and thick was swirling in his stomach, trying its best to fill his lungs with an angry tint. He didn't know why.

The Water Tribe siblings weren’t the only ones who seemed to be feeling better. Toph was back to ridiculously blunt sarcasm, and punches that left you rubbing your arm in exasperated pain. Teo was eagerly telling The Duke about a new room he had found in the temple. “And it’s full of all these drawings, Duke, they’re beautiful! I’ll have to show you later, but there is this one drawing that looks like a design for some kind of trench? I can’t figure out what it’s for but-”

 _Some kind of trench._ The words seemed to echo in his mind for a split second before really sinking in. Aang’s head snapped around so fast he got whiplash. He hissed in pain, grabbing his neck and blurted, “Did you say a trench? What kind of trench?” 

The Duke and Teo both looked slightly startled at his sudden outburst, used to him entering conversations less abruptly. From across the room, he could feel Katara’s eyes focus on him. 

“Um,” Teo said, recovering, “I don’t know. At first I thought it might be an aqueduct design, but I realized it doesn’t look like it’s designed for water. There are lots of little grooves that feed down into a big deep groove, and it just stops there. But there are also tiny tunnels that extend past under the big groove. I couldn’t figure out what it was for. But maybe it was some kind of a drainage system in progress. Why do you want to know? Do you know what it is?” 

Now everyone within earshot had leaned towards him, waiting for his response. Even Zuko looked interested, though he had fixed his eyes on Suki in a poor attempt at feigning nonchalance.

“Maybe,” Aang admitted, getting to his feet. His blood roared in his ears, his heartbeat fluttering like a caged bird beating itself against bars. “Could you tell me where the room is? I just want to check something.” 

Teo looked him up and down, his eyes hard and analytical. Devising results from the information given. He looked at Aang for a few tense moments. What could he see? How much of it was he putting together? Aang would never know. “It’s about four flights up from the staircase off the stream, at the end of the hall that opens on that balcony overlooking the cliff. It has all these inscriptions above the doorway. You can’t miss it.” There was something in Teo’s face, tentative and reluctant. Aang could see pieces clicking in his mind, a puzzle with the picture growing clearer every second. He could see where this was going, why he cared about this room and this drawing, Aang was sure. Even if he didn’t know the details, he could see the general shape this was forming. He already looked as if he regretted telling him, like if he could take it back, he would. It should never be said that Teo was not as smart as his father. The speaker would be dead wrong.

“Thank you,” Aang said anyway.

“You’re welcome.” _I’m sorry,_ Teo’s eyes say. _Don’t go. This won’t help you._

He turned around anyway, and started towards the staircase. Just as he turned around the last three pillars and reached the arched entryway, a voice behind him said, “Don’t.” He turned to see Teo staring at him with solemn eyes. Sometimes Aang forgot how fast Teo could move if he wanted to. “Don’t do it, Aang.”

“Why not? It’s just a drawing that I want to see.”

Teo’s stare bored into him, sad and knowing. For a brief moment, Aang thought he wouldn’t say it. He did. “Whoever you are looking for isn’t here anymore. Don’t give yourself more pain than you already have.”

Aang looked at him. Teo’s words had made it real. _She isn’t here. Not anymore. But does that change anything?_

Teo spun, shooting him one last glance over his shoulder. “I know what it’s like to want closure. But I don’t think you’ll find any here.” And then he was gone.

It changed nothing. His mind had already been made up. Aang walked over to the staircase by the stream and started up. _I need to know. Whether I find closure or just pain._

A heavy voice deep inside of him whispered, _Is there really a difference, in any way that matters?_

Aang didn’t know. He kept going anyway. The stairways were dark and cool, light only still filtering through a few windows. He paused in a beam of slanted light, watching dust motes spin through the air. _Nothing I could find would change anything,_ he thought. _So why am I so scared?_

Words rippled through his mind, old and soft. _If you really love something,_ veshereh _, or someone, it leaves you cold with terror. If they love you back though, it will leave you warm in the darkness._

He didn’t feel warm, now. Just so very, very, scared. What was he really scared of, he wondered. What he might find, or what he might not? 

He rounded the edge of the third flight, and stepped through the arched doorway into a hallway full of golden light and long, slanting shadows. Five doorways stretched out on either side of the walls, and the end of the hallway opened onto a balcony surrounded by a low railing. Even from here he could see the reds and oranges and earthy colors of the canyon the temple sat in, illuminated by the lowering sun. The light wrapped around him, warm and soft, but it couldn’t touch the frost building in his veins. He slid down the hallway slowly, dust swirling up from his footsteps and catching in the sunlight like clouds of fire. 

He stopped in front of the last doorway before the balcony. Swirling inscriptions covered the ancient stones, the edges of the carefully carved glyphs fading in the face of endless time. His heart pounding in his chest, thrumming with terror and trying to stop his jaw from trembling. A girl so long ago had said to him once, _I feel like glass, humming with noise before it shatters._ He thought he finally understood what she had meant. Frost in his veins, in his bones, in his lungs, choking him with ice, humming with noise. Aang stepped through the doorway into the room. And shattered.

The first thing he saw was the window, tall and arched and designed to let a person leap straight out of it. The next thing he saw was the papers. Teo hadn’t been joking. They were everywhere. A paper hurricane had spun through the room and left its detritus over every surface designed for holding papers, and many that were not. There were piles on the floor, on the desk, on the bed. Single papers strewn across everything, dried up ink pots in various states of emptiness acting as paperweights in different spots, calligraphy pens lying next to them. Books and scrolls were tucked in every empty crevice, and there were about five different scroll holders across the room, all of them overflowing. And a painted instrument case lying under the bed.

The world seemed to stop and hold its breath as he stared at the case, his eyes blurring. A canyon raven screamed outside the window, low and haunting, and the trance broke. He turned around and walked over to the desk on shaking legs. It was obvious that Teo had been in here, the layer of dust on the desk disturbed, papers shifted from their original position. 

Aang picked up the paper on top. It was the diagram of the trench Teo had been talking about, inked in careful, flowing strokes. He had seen it used before, but he had never seen the blueprints. Anaya’s swirling calligraphy filled the margins of the page, words large in some areas, and so tiny and cramped in others they were barely legible. _You always have too much to say,_ Maokej had teased her once. Anaya had laughed and said, _And never enough space to say it._

‘ _On the Use of Conduction of Air Currents to Dislodge Earth,’_ read the top of the diagram. _That’s a rather fancy way of describing flipping dirt at something,_ Maokej had said when Anaya told her the title. Anaya had shot her a teasing look and said, _Well,_ The Effects of Modern Transportation on Communication _is a rather fancy way of saying Stuff I Just Read Last Night And Don’t Really Understand, but I didn’t say that when you were turning in your essay last week, now did I?_ Aang had laughed when Maokej rolled her eyes and pulled Anaya in for a kiss. 

He set the paper down as gently as he could, and moved over to another pile on the desk. He picked it up and examined it carefully, flicking through the yellowing pages. It looked like it was mostly scientific papers and essays on political standings of various cities. He set it down and kept going. Oh. He shifted the dried out inkpot off and picked up the last pile, sinking to the floor. _Oh._

These were her drawings. He gazed down at the first one, sure he had stopped breathing altogether. It was a canyonflower, covered in dew and surrounded by buds and glossy leaves, twining up the side of a boulder. There was a waterfall as viewed from the bottom, pouring off the side of a cliff into open air, but the view of the picture was soaring up, so that it almost looked like the water was falling in reverse. A picture of Maokej laughing back at the viewer, stunningly rendered, adoration for her captured with every stroke of ink. A dragon twisting between two mountain peaks. A baby sky bison bonding with a tiny girl. A view of the canyon. A flash of the main level, full of women and girls everywhere. A picture done in reverse, white ink on black paper, that could only be a festival night, full of people dancing and singing. Tiny flashes of the Air Temples captured in the pages, even though everyone in them was gone. He wiped his cheeks, wondering when he had started crying. 

He had laid out each of the papers on the floor, and now he sat looking out over the collage of a dead girl’s soul. _This is all that is left of her._ It was too much. He scooped up the papers with a gust of air, sweeping them into a messy pile and barely stopping to drop them on the desk before he was running out the door as fast as his trembling legs would carry him. 

He raced out onto the balcony, barely glancing at the view before he leapt and spun in midair, launching himself upwards from the balcony railing to run straight up the side of the cliff face. He knew where he was going. He dodged a pole with a rusty lantern dangling from the end, and raced up twenty feet before he lunged onto a ledge in the cliff face, and crumpled to his knees, hyperventilating. _Anefar Oanii_ , the girls at the temple called it. Had called it. Sun oasis. The string of connected ledges laid high enough on the cliff that even as darkness descended in the canyon below, it stayed bathed in light until the sun dipped completely back below the horizon. And if you weren’t an airbender, it was nearly impossible to get to. Perfect. 

Aang curled into a ball and sobbed, wet heaving gasps tearing their way out of his throat like they were edged in thorns. He was vaguely aware that something was making a sound like a serpentvulture having its scales pulled off one by one, a persistent, howling wail of complete agony. It took him a few minutes to realize that it was him. _Relame sai Yuoe,_ a voice whispered in his head. _This is no time to mourn._ No. No, no, no. He didn’t care. He couldn’t wait. He wouldn’t. He rocked back and forth, his arms wound around his legs, his eyes closed as tightly as he could, and he wailed his misery to the world.

(Maybe he was hoping something would hear him, and make it hurt less. Something heard him. It didn’t start hurting less.)

Gyatso had told him once that the spirits listened to the airbenders, because the airbenders listened to them. _The spirits are as strange as they are powerful,_ he had said, his tone suggesting this was both a lesson and a warning. _They will show you respect, if you show it to them first. Spirits protect their own, Aang. And if you remember them, they will remember you._

The spirits remembered him. Aang sat curled in the isolation of _Anefar Oanii_ , and he screamed. The spirits screamed with him. The air roared and whipped around him, tearing at his clothes and ripping dust from the cliffs. The cliff face shuddered, groaning and shifting, centuries worth of rock crawling over itself. Voices, frantic and furious, filled his ears with an unintelligible cacophony. They were looking for a threat. There was no threat but the cruel pain possessing him. The spirits spun around themselves, turning the air hot and cold and spicy and frost-filled, choking him under a thousand different flashes of sensations. Power with nowhere to go.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, screaming, but eventually his sobs turned to sniffles, and his whimpers turned barely audible groans. He wiped his eyes, and sniffed, grimacing as he registered the snot smeared beneath his nose. Anyone who thought crying was pretty had clearly never really ugly-cried. The spirits, still concerned, but seemingly realizing they could not do anything for him, tapered away, sliding back into dormancy, or simply leaving to go elsewhere. That was okay.

He sat there for a while, feeling generally disgusting and completely drained, just watching the sunset inch its way closer to the edge of the world. A strange apathy rushed through him, a stark contrast to his state of being not thirty minutes earlier. Or maybe it wasn’t apathy so much as the lack of capacity to hurt any more than he already did. Was this what it felt like to be a dried up river? Cracking at the bottom, dusty and scorchingly hot, a place where water had once pooled, now so awfully bone-dry? Or was this what it felt like to be a lake overflowing? Set to handle so much, but filling and filling and filling until the water had nowhere left to go but out, devouring the land and choking life from the plants tied down to the earth? Nowhere left to go anywhere, so it chooses to go everywhere?

He sat numbly and watched the sun trace its arc to the horizon, listening to the crowing of the canyon ravens. Until he heard a sound that was definitely not a canyon raven. Rocks tumbling away into the chasm of space, a string of curse words, hissed under the breath. He didn’t turn to look. He knew who it was. They would make it up. Or go back down. It didn’t really matter. But he wasn’t terribly shocked when about three minutes later, a soft voice behind him said, “Hey. Nice spot you’ve got here. Mind if I join you?”

He shrugged. Carefully measured footsteps trailed toward him, and Suki sat down next to him cross legged. Leave it to the Kyoshi warrior to find a way to climb twenty feet of vertical stone by sheer force of will. They sat together in silence, listening to the symphonies of rock crickets, and the _whoosh-whoosh_ of the foxowls’ wings as they rose from their slumber one by one. 

Suki shifted, and he internally sighed, knowing what was coming. “Toph said something about an hour and a half ago,” she said. “That she felt the cliff move all on its own, like it was turning inside out. We might have thought she was pulling our chains if we hadn’t heard the wind start screaming like it was dying.”

Aang said nothing, so Suki nudged his shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?”

Aang’s shoulders slumped, a heavy weight dropping into his stomach, not enough to entirely banish the feelings of hollowness consuming him, but enough to slow it a little bit. “What about it?” he said, wincing at his hoarse voice. Well. Now she definitely knew he had been crying. 

“Well,” she said cautiously. “We all saw you leave alone, and then Teo tells us he gave you instructions to a room after you recognized a drawing just by him describing it. And then you vanish for three hours with no warning, and Toph says she can feel the cliff flipping, and the air is screaming, and here you are, sitting all alone.”

He could feel her eyes on him, sharp and knowing. He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t let her past the fragile shell he had sculpted in the silence, or he would crumble all over again.

He felt, rather than heard, her silent sigh. He braced himself to be grilled, dissected, torn down brick by brick in the name of good intentions. But nothing came. After he reached the count of thirty breaths, he risked a brief glance at her out of the corner of his eye. She had her eyes fixed on the sky, clouds streaked with pink against the orange and gold background. It hit him like a punch to the gut, the realization of what she was doing, or rather _not_ doing. She wasn’t going to push. She was waiting for him. For him to be ready to talk to her. _I’ve got time,_ her silence said, soft and caring. _I’ll wait for you._

He turned his eyes back to the sky, blinking back tears. Another few minutes passed in silence except for the steady rush of their breathing. The grief eddied, swirling cool and deep as a current at the bottom of a river. 

“I keep thinking about this one poem,” he said quietly, and Suki only jumped a little. She turned towards him, pulling all of her attention to his words. “It was from an old nun at the Western Air Temple. She was dead long before I was born. But her poems were really beautiful. Ana-” he stopped, the simmering ghosts in his veins stirring and releasing a plaintive howl that sent tremors through his bones at the thought of her. “Someone I knew really loved them,” he continued, hoping Suki would be tactful enough to ignore his slip up, “And one of them stuck with me for some reason. I never got it before… everything. But I think I’m starting to get it, now.”

He tipped his eyes up, and watched a serpentvulture glide in a lazy arc, tracing its sparkling wings with his gaze. “In the poem,” he said slowly, measuring his words before he released them, “she compares herself to an empty cathedral, full of dust and the echoes of the dead. She says that she is hollow, and haunted, but she can’t tell who is the one doing the haunting, the people that are dead, or herself.” His words coiled between them, heavy with something too powerful to name. “I think,” he said, “that she was talking about grief. That sometimes one of the hardest parts about losing someone you love is that you lose them, and you lose the person that you were, too. It hurts because they are gone, and they left you lost. It hurts, because… because they left, and they took a part of you with them when they went.”

He licked his cracking lips, and wiped away tears, finally turning to meet Suki’s eyes. His walls didn’t matter. She could already see him. Her eyes were almost as sad as his, her shoulders almost as heavy. Who had taken her pieces? Who had left her spiraling in their wake? “I keep wondering,” his voice cracked, “If that rule applies when you lose a lot of people all at once. Do you lose one big piece for all of them? Or do each of them take a little part of you with them for every memory that they owned?”

He let out a wet laugh, his tears overflowing. He smiled at her, and it felt like an open wound. “I keep wondering,” he said, “How much of me is left?”

Suki’s face fell, flooding with sorrow and recognition and horrible, horrible understanding. She swept him into a hug so tight he felt his ribs creaking under the pressure, so tight he could almost feel their jagged edges scrape together. He cried into her chest, ragged sobs and hollow grief. She didn’t say anything. She just held him to her, and ran her hand over the back of his head, and let him mourn. No judgement.

When the tears stopped coming, and the emptiness began to descend again, he pushed away from her, and she let her arms fall away. His eyes caught on the huge spot that spread across her chest, darker than the rest of her shirt with wetness, and he felt himself flush with embarrassment. “Sorry.”

Suki looked at him like he had lost his mind, which was maybe fair considering she had just seen him blubbering like a baby into her shirt. “For what?” she said incredulously.

 _For dumping my screwed up emotions on you_ , he doesn’t say. “I got you all gross,” he says instead. 

Suki looks so sad. She looks angry, too. But mostly, she just looks tired, in the way they all look tired. Tired of running, of losing, of fighting over an idea of the dead, tired of bleeding for an endless series of battles that should never have been theirs to end. They are all just exhausted, desperately waiting to rest. No one ever said war was fair.

“Aang,” she says softly, like if she says her words quiet enough they won’t fall so hard. “Please never apologize to me for feeling things. Please never apologize to me for your grief. No matter what anyone says, you are allowed to feel overwhelmed, and heartbroken, and exhausted. It is okay to let yourself feel things that aren’t happiness. We won’t think any less of you.” She doesn’t say it lightly, because Suki is a child of war, and children of war do not do many things lightly. But she says it kindly, and that feels like enough.

Aang’s jaw trembled, and he fought the urge to say, _But everyone else will._ “But I’m not being fair to you,” he said tearfully, shaking his head. “You just got back from actual prison, and here I am crying on you like a baby because I can’t handle walking into a stupid room.” He wiped his cheeks with two angry swipes, hoping Suki hadn’t noticed the last part that he definitely shouldn’t have said. One look at her face and he knew she had. She always did. Stubborn, brilliant Suki, too intelligent for her own good sometimes. It would be so much easier for her if she didn’t try to be there for everyone else, too. It didn’t matter. She always did.

Suki shook her head, her expression almost disbelieving. “And here I was for a second,” she said aggressively, “Almost thinking you were smart!”

He flinched in shock, his eyes widening. She met his gaze with her own, stubborn and unyielding as rock. “Comparing traumas is awful, and harmful, and you should never, _ever,_ be doing it. Around me or anyone else. This isn’t a game of _Who Has the Most Unresolved Issues_ , or _Who Has Recently Suffered the Most Pain_. Drowning in two inches of water has the same result as drowning one hundred feet under. Your feelings are valid. And I wouldn’t be twenty feet up a vertical cliff from the last decent handhold if I didn’t want to be here for you, you tiny little moron.”

He stared at her, mouth agape and eyes blown wide as saucers from shock. Suki’s fierce expression softened, and she took his hand from where it lay limply by his side, and said, “We want to be there for you, Aang. But we can’t do that if you hide yourself away every time the pain comes in some twisted effort to protect us from it.”

“It shouldn’t be your job to carry that for me.”

“It’s not. And we aren’t. We are trying to help carry it _with_ you. If it isn’t our job to carry it, then it shouldn’t be yours to do, either.”

He was pretty sure he was still looking at her like she had grown an extra head, because she took his other hand and squeezed them with her own. “This is how the whole taking care of each other thing works. You get to cry on my shoulder after I get back from prison, and when I inevitably need some kind of help to deal with the prison thing, you all are there for me.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “You _would_ be there for me if I needed you, right?”

“Of course,” he said immediately. Suki shot him a smug grin. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “This is unfair! You tricked me! I didn’t know there were stipulations!”

Suki gave him a lofty look. “You did that to yourself,” she said. Then her face fell into something more real. “This is how this works, Aang. If you are going to be there for us, we get to be there for you. And we _are_ here for you.”

He didn’t try to hold back the tears that came to his eyes. “Thank you,” he croaked, raspy and faint. “Thank you.”

Suki smiled at him, soft and sad and completely immovable. “ _Reca we, gengai,_ ” she said. 

He let out a wet laugh that could never do justice to the gratitude he felt. The pit of his stomach still flickered hot with guilt for pouring his emotions on her when she just got back, but she didn’t need to see that. She needed to see how appreciated he felt because of her attention. He smiled at her, trying to pour all the words that had gotten caught scraping and messy somewhere between his lungs and his mouth into his gaze. Something got through, he thought, because the smile she gave him was a mix of pride and satisfaction and just a hint of sadness that she hadn’t managed to quite snuff out. 

She watched him like she was looking for cracks on his skin, waiting for some of the turmoil underneath his carefully crafted walls to break through to the surface. Sometimes he felt like he was more scars than body, more fractured memories than human. Too many ghosts and too little happiness to be anything more than a splintering echo. And no one else could see how broken he was, until they knew where to look for the cracks, and then that was all they saw. How many cracks could Suki see painted across his skin, a twisting map to a world that no longer existed? Enough.

“Who were they?” Suki asked quietly, her eyes penetrating and full of crushed cherry blossoms. 

“What do you mean?” he lied. He knew what she was asking. She knew it, too.

“The person whose room that was. Who were they?” _Who were they to you?_

He thinks of Anaya, of her crooked grin, and her voice that was so smooth until she got excited, and then it cracked and leapt with emotion. The way she seemed to know everything, the way she pursed her lips when she was trying to figure out how to explain something to him. He thinks of the way she grinned like every smile would be her last, the way she wrote like she would never have another minute, and the world needed to hear what she had to say. He thinks of how she was so patient and understanding, and she always, always made time for him, and how her eyes crinkled at the corners when she laughed. Skirts splashing through puddles, and warm hands on his, and a voice singing into the downpour. He thinks of dancing in the rain, and he doesn’t say _She was my sister._

He knows she feels (felt, felt) the same way, and it hurts all the more for it.

He looks over at Suki, brilliant and stubborn and passionate, with too much force and too many scars and a ruthless brutality in the way she protected what was hers. Suki, who loves with teeth and claws and hot, fast blood, because if they are all going to die in the end, then what is the point of hiding anything, anyway? Suki, who is at the same time too jarringly different and hauntingly familiar to a girl he knew once.

An ache rides between his ribs, and for a split second he is crumbling pillars, and weed-choked temples, and empty rooms full of dust. An empty cathedral, echos and hollowness and a bruised, bleeding heartbeat thrumming through the floor.

He looks away, half convinced that if he keeps looking, Suki’s face will begin to change into someone else. “I can’t,” he breathed, his words raw and bruised. “Not now. Not yet.” He looks up at the sky dripping red, and it looks like it is bleeding, too. “Someday, I’ll tell you. I promise. Someday when it hurts less to think about.” Someday when his memories don’t feel like festering wounds anymore. Someday when he can hear their voices without his heart stinging, pain flaring back to life with all the fury of a lost limb. Someday. If they make it that long. 

Suki squeezes his hand, and pulls him into her shoulder. They watch the sun set together. He thinks about everything that is gone forever, everything that nothing can ever bring back. He curls his fingers around his grief, and lets himself ache.

But he rests his head on Suki’s shoulder, and listens to her breathing, and he lets himself feel happy, too. He breathes, and he aches, grief, and pain, and something like hope sitting bittersweet on his tongue. 

Later, Aang will go back down and find Katara and Sokka waiting for them. She will hug him, and he will clap his shoulder, and he will feel a little more home.

He sits with his head on Suki’s shoulder, and watches the dying sun paint the sky the colors of a wound, a kiss, and the inside of a flower. He breathes. And he aches. But when Suki nudges his shoulder and points at the first star (A voice not his own whispering in his head. _The keystone star, Aang, is the first to rise in the night, and it chases the sun in time with the earth. It will always guide you home._ ) he smiles, too.

\-----

 _Relame sai Yuoe._ To mourn with the moon. Part of it was fairly self-explanatory. The other part, less so. But it was no less important. 

Aang rose before dawn every morning. He would find a place to sit, on a shore, or a boulder, in the grass slick with dew. Anywhere would work. He would assume his position for meditation. There was something magical about dawn and twilight. Magical in the shift, from one kingdom to another, new rulers and new subjects, a cast of new players to the game of the natural world. Barely visible until you knew what to look for, and then it was all you could see. Sometimes he would close his eyes to meditate, find peace in the darkness, and calm in the noises of one world rising from its slumber, and another drifting into its own. Other times he would keep his eyes open, watch the world undergo its shift. See the squirrelcrows leap from branch to branch, collecting nuts in their clawed paws and chirping greetings in their chittering croaks. Watch the rustle of the trees in the wind, or the leaping of the rabbit frogs, or the gleam of foxowls’ eyes as they flew past back to their dens. 

But every morning, when he saw the darkness fade from the sky like the ebbing tide, he would turn toward the east and watch as the first fingers of daylight slipped over the horizon. He would watch the sun paint the clouds gold and yellow and pink with careful strokes, a masterpiece of nature’s making. Watch as the light turned every blade of grass into a work of art, transforming the dewdrops that clung to the plants into tiny drops of liquid sun, miniature reflections of Agni’s glory. Would watch as the sunfire flowers opened their thousands of miniscule blooms and twined toward the brilliant light. He would watch it inch its way over the ground, closer and closer, throwing long, slanted shadows, and when it reached him he would tip his face up into the warmth, and he would smile. He would celebrate. He would live.

He would remember Gyatso’s knowing smile, and Anaya’s ringing laugh. He would remember the library, that always smelled like old parchment, and echoed in its high alcoves, where there always seemed to be someone sitting. He would remember the wind tunnels that snaked through all the temples, designed to conduct the rushing air, filling the temples’ rooms with a sound like flutes and reed pipes. He would remember the games with the other kids, laughing and airbending and not caring about acting dignified, because who has the time to care about being dignified when they could care about _being_? He would remember dancing to the beat that thrummed through the temple on music night, laughter and sweat and hundreds of people singing, not a one of them caring if they were off key. He would remember the traditions, the teachings, the culture of his people, rippling from the past and spilling into the present through him. He celebrates. 

_I am here,_ he thinks, over and over. _I am here. I am here. I am here._

It aches in his chest, grief, and pain, and love, love, love, singing sonorous and eternal and bittersweet. He breathes in, and breathes out. He curls his fingers around who he is and holds on tight. _I am here,_ he thinks. And it aches. Hurts in a way that can never be named, but that’s okay. After all, the sun still rises after the dawn. And he is not alone.


	2. Language Key! (And Extra Stuff)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Language Key, and the poem Aang describes to Suki.

Language Key

(I will continue to add to this as the fics go on, and I come up with more words.)

Air Nomads

Yuoe- (you-OH-ey) moon

Relame- (reh-la-mey) ( _ me  _ pronounced like in mesa) to mourn

Sai- (sigh)(said quickly, like saying  _ lie _ ) with

Relame sai Yuoe- to mourn with the moon; it is a tradition of the Air Nomads that if you have suffered a great loss, you should try to let yourself begin mourning when the moon rises and cease when the sun rises, as a way of reminding yourself that even though you need to mourn, you should not stop living, that the person/people you are mourning would want you to find peace and happiness, too.

Erave- (eh-RAH-vey) spirit, add - _ v  _ to the end to make plural, spirits ( _ Eravev).  _ The word refers to either a spirit(s) that can be named, or one that cannot. 

Uole- (oo-OH-lay) song, or expression of feelings

Eravev-Uole- prayers for the spirits; the Air Nomads give thanks and gratitude for nature, and the world that they live in, either with traditional chants or with personal ones of their own making. They can be given at any time, in any way that is not disrespectful to the spirits, but are usually given at least once a month. The chants are believed to give the spirits recognition, and that by acknowledging them, the people will be more listened to by the spirits. The other nations used to have similar practices, but they faded away over time. This has left the Air Nomads with a closer relationship to the spirits of nature than other cultures, as they acknowledge both spirits that can be named, and spirits that cannot be named, by using the collective term  _ Eravev,  _ instead of only acknowledging the major spirits with well known names (ex. Tui and La, Agni, ect.)

Quere- to share

Vidale- life

Cuolefar Heobe- (COO-oh-LAY-far A-oh-BAY)creeping lilies, a type of flower that grows by the Southern Air Temple; they cling to rocks, and bloom in the spring, and over the course of the spring, they shift from their beginning pinks to purples. Also called  _ Anefar Jurente  _ by the children of the temple

Anefar Jurente-(Anay-FAR who-REN-tay) sundrop flowers; another name for  _ Cuolefar Heobe _

Quere Vidale- (COO-eh-re vee-DAH-lay)an old tradition in which one observes another culture through someone who actively practices in a place where it is actively practiced 

Veshereh- (veh-sher-eh)soul sibling, a very powerful way of saying, ‘you are my family’. It places emphasis on emotional bonds, and a very deep feeling of love and care. 

Anefar Oanii- (Anay-FAR oh-AH-ni) sun oasis, a string of connected ledges high on the cliff above the Western Air Temple with small pools and gardens that are traditionally tended to by the children of the temple

Water Tribes   
  


Southern

Te Kavéle- (Teh Kah-VEH-leh) literally means,  _ you rot,  _ but it is also a curse word used to speak ill of someone else, meaning that they are lower than rot, or,  _ I hope that you rot _ . To add - _ ne  _ to the end is to say the curse directly to the person you are speaking with ( _ Te Kavélene). _ It is a term of utmost disrespect, and is not ever used in a joking manner.

Fecin- (feh-siin, siin sharp and short) a piece of poop, or something that no one wants to be around, even just for long enough to deal with it.

Shaimek- (SHY-meck) brother, either emotional or biological; to add - _ e  _ to the end is to place emphasis on _ little  _ brother (Shaimeke), and to add - _ a  _ to the end is to put emphasis on  _ big  _ brother (Shaimeka) (can be used as a technical term or a term of endearment)

Shaimel-(SHY-mel) sister, either emotional or biological; to add - _ e  _ to the end is to place emphasis on _ little  _ sister (Shaimele), and to add - _ a  _ to the end is to put emphasis on  _ big  _ sister (Shaimela) (can be used as a technical term or a term of endearment)

Northern

  
  


Earth Kingdom

Yetan Gegar- a type of food, consisting of cooked meats and/or vegetables in wraps of thin crust.

Reca we, gengai- (Ray-ka WAY gen-GUY) for you, again; an expression used to say, ‘this was worth it, for you’, or ‘this was no problem’, or, literally, ‘I would do this again for you’ but is associated with feelings of fondness or care

Fire Nation

Extra

Poem from the Western Air Temple-

I am an empty cathedral now, 

All arched ceilings and stained glass windows,

Smears of black ash on the walls above candles long since burned out.

There is dust everywhere, and my ears ring with echoes of those who have long since gone.

I am an empty cathedral now, 

Hollow, and haunted.

But I cannot help asking myself

Who is the real ghost?

Them?

Or me?

- _I am gone now, too. You left with too much of me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Behold! More excessive worldbuilding! I hope you liked the word descriptions, and the mini-poem. (I really love this poem, you guys. So if you read more of this series, you may see more of it. You have been forewarned.) :)

**Author's Note:**

> Congrats! If you are reading this, you've made it through my very first piece of fanfiction! I hope it didn't make you cringe too badly. Online school sucks, so between classes I was like, 'Hey, you know what I can do? Try my hand at fanfic!' There is a lack of pieces in this fandom that I think really get into how awful it would have been to lose your whole culture in what feels like just a few days. So, as a person with okay-ish writing skills, I felt it was my duty to help fill the void. Hopefully I will actually do more works to add to this series. I look forward to doing a bit more with some of our favorite disaster children! (I suck at following through with things though, so we'll see how that goes.) But I thought it would be interesting to try to depict some more visible differences between the four nations' cultures, and where better to start than with the boy who holds one-fourth of all of the nations' cultures by himself? So, naturally, I probably did too much worldbuilding, and you're probably reading this like, 'What even is this crap?' But I am actually pretty happy with the finished project, and I really did have fun writing this, so I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! (Feel free to play grammar police with this. I would love any feedback you could give me!) :)


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